Eternity In A Nutshell
by Sideshow Cellophane 26
Summary: (Not so much horror as just dark) Cecil Terwilliger finds an empty journal after his many years in prison, separated from his family, alone and friendless. But he is no longer alone and friendless - he is alone and friendless with an empty journal! Finally, a change from the quiet and dark of his cell! But what to write? Hm...


**A short drabble I wrote for my favorite Simpsons character, Cecil Terwilliger. Warning: dark. Listen to happy music after reading.**

* * *

I have spent eternity locked in a nutshell. Now, how does that sound as the beginning of a story? An odd way to catch someone's attention, but it does its job.

I write this because there is no possible way I'm ever going to get out of here. My time has come for a parole hearing, even pointed this out numerous times to guards, but it has yet to be acted upon.

What have I truly done to deserve this? I mean, truly. Truly, to deserve a lifetime in this hell-hole without even a chance of freedom? My brother, why just look at my brother! There he was, brought here by a multiple-time attempted murder charge, and yet he is constantly being released for parole? As for me, ha! To hell with me, they all must think, he is no one.

No one.

Pish, posh! I tried to flood the entire town once, tried to murder those Simpson kids. I suppose this is just what some people get then, for doing something so slight in comparison to another. Not even in comparison to just Bob, there are numerous crooks in this hell that have been released for parole and brought back in here soon after, sometimes as early as a couple hours.

As for me? Haven't even gotten the _chance_ to sniff the roses yet. What _have_ I done? Am I being punished cruelly for a past life, maybe, or is it all just one big JOKE to someone?!

I have begun to think so. I feel like a doll that hasn't left the shelf in a store for many years, left in a corner and forgotten. Is it so hard for any of my family members to just keep contact with me? I find that being left for the dead is ever so lonely. They haven't spoken to me since a few months after the damned funeral—and from the markings on the wall in my cell, it might be that several years have passed since that time.

Every day, life moves in a circle. Wake up, eat, do nothing, eat again, do nothing, eat again, go to bed.

But now, now that I have found this empty journal, there is not just nothingness anymore. I am not just a shadow all alone in the corner, I am now a shadow all alone in the corner with an empty journal!

Have I mentioned that I haven't talked to my family in quite a while? That is, I really haven't talked to much of anyone for quite a while. The last time I bothered to ask anyone, my parents had bailed themselves and disappeared. My lovely wife in law is out, but I don't know where. Somewhere with Gino's hand clutched firmly in hers, I bet, starting a new life away from Bob.

Bob.

My older brother has himself to thank for this hell we've all drifted into. He has managed to escape again and again from here, always with some reasonable excuse for parole.

That is why I think I am damned to be the doll on a shelf in a corner for the rest of my life. I see faces here, I see old and new faces, but they are all the same. They do something bad to get themselves in here, they get out. Unless they did something truly malevolent, in which case they tend to isolate themselves and never stay in my block.

Maybe I'm more like a shadow.

My childhood, see, was spent mostly in confusion.

 _The doll was built, fresh and new._

* * *

This was written in red ink, scribbled over some of the words. Perhaps it was written later on?

* * *

I wanted to be a clown, nobody enforced me to go on, nobody told me to reach for my dreams. Isn't that what friends and families do? Tell you you can be whatever you want to be?

 _They put the doll on the shelf, in the public's eyes._

Well, mine sure as hell didn't. It was a slap in the face when the time finally came, and BOB stole all of those dreams.

 _Nobody wanted to pay attention to the doll._

So, I moved on, went on to be in hydrodynamics. Ten years later, Bob came back. Life was once again in ruins.

 _Soon, the doll had to be moved due to newer dolls being built, newer dolls being bought_.

I spent a few years after that with him in prison. He always left on parole, but he always came back. I left sometimes too. I came back.

 _They didn't know what to do with the doll no one wanted ._ . . . .

Eventually, the funeral came. I met Bob's new family, we got to planning a Heavenly trip, new lives for us all where nothing bad would ever happen again. Bart foiled our plan, and that was about the time my life was handed over to others to rip apart and SHRED LIKE CONFETTI GODDAMNIT

 _. . . So they put him on the top shelf._

Pardon me. I tend to have little outbursts every now and then. I didn't have any of these problems before they lead my family members to either a women's prison, another block of the prison, or Juvenile Hall. Left me all alone in this one cell. I've never even had a roommate.

 _Lonely, grew the doll…_

There are markings along the walls that I have long since stopped making, to mark each day gone by.

 _A bit of madness began to grow inside its skull like a blooming flower over the many years._

Mark-mark-mark-mark-mark-mark-mark-mark! From what I just counted, I stopped marking after a couple hundred days. How humorous, in a way. Think about it. No, never-mind. You're a book that I'm writing inside of, so I suppose you can't.

 _It was full of hatred, but the doll would deny its feelings. All full of hatred to keep pent up inside until it was so full of hot air and despair, and none of it could be released, that the darkness simply evolved the doll into something else._

I had so much anger bottled inside of me, and for so long, it has now rotten and withered away. Some people say I'm crazy, I say I'm Cecil Terwilliger. Or at least, a newer version of me. Perhaps that is what they're talking about as well. Well then, I changed what I said. They say this newer version of me is crazy, I say I'm ticklish. Feet especially, but I've never exactly been tickled. I have one vague memory of when I was about a toddler, and Bob playing with me by tickling my feet until I couldn't breathe, but I have not wanted to show my vulnerability to anybody.

To grow up is to lose innocence. Sexual innocence too, and for some people it's before they even hit sixteen. But the relationship did not last, and my own love died a few years later in a bank robbery gone wrong.

So did I, I suppose, a small part of me called " _non-sarcastic love_."

Moving on from THAT hell-hole. As I was saying before, losing innocence. Funny. As in, ha-ha funny. Little children are made to believe that the world is full of innocence, and then WHAM!

Life hits them in the face. Me, it happened earlier than others.

 _This doll grew to hate and hate and hate until the hate burned out the doll's soul, leaving it empty..._

I made this realization long ago, but I re-thought it again a few . . . whenever it was ago (I repeated ago. Do you, as a book, suppose anyone will mind?). When that happened, I began to laugh.

It started out as more of a chuckle. Then, giggling. I was giggling like a maniac. I remember that clearly. It turned into a hard laughter, growing in volume until it rocketed off the prison walls and the guards had to come in and shut me up themselves.

Looking back, I swear that something _was_ tickling me, showing me my vulnerability for the whole world to see.

One of them, who has guarded by my cell for the past however many years, grabbed my shoulders, asked me what was wrong. But the tickling didn't stop until he forced my eyes to look into his own.

They were full of worry, and for me! That I had not seen before. My laughter dried, shriveled, and died on my tongue.

Dried-shriveled-died. Hm. Funny. Ha-ha funny.

That was when the tears came, and flowed down my cheeks as the guards left me with whatever it was that had left me empty inside—that ticklish feeling in my stomach. That was what it was. The vulnerable feeling that I had not wanted to show to anyone.

Well, it was a bastard.

So here I sit who-knows-how-many years later. My guard friend, Manny I think his name was, has long since moved out of my life. I don't care anymore. I have not spoken a word to anyone since that day. Nobody bothers to talk to me anymore.

Good. Because I LIKE being left alone with my thoughts. They're my world. My only world now.

* * *

Cecil re-read that last sentence. "Hm. Funny."

A realization dawned on him: those were the first words he has spoken in many years.

A grin broke out on his face, and a slow but steady stream of giggles escaped his lips.

Soon, it bounced off the walls of the overflowing prison, even after it wasn't funny anymore. He continued to laugh, heavy guffaws and howling laughter erupting from his being, the vulnerable feeling having returned to tickle all parts of his body this time. So, he laughed and laughed even when tears were leaking down his face.

No guards bothered to come in. No one cared.

This made him laugh even harder. Tears streamed down his face until the roar died down because he could no longer breathe. Until the sobs replaced all giggling and laughter, racking his body and making it shudder and shake with despair.

 _The doll fell off the shelf, shattering into a million different pieces on the floor._ _No one knew._


End file.
